“I think people like me,” the legendary La Lupe, one of the most electrifyingly memorable performers
to ever blitz Planet Earth, once said in an interview, “because I do what they’d like to, but can’t get
free enough to do.” True, some would say La Yi Yi Yi was free spirit incarnate; others would say she
was simply possessed. Literally. No surprise, given the voluptuous vocalist’s onstage inclination to
bounce off walls, rip her clothes off, throw shoes at her band, and claw, bite, and scratch herself, all
the while belting a tune with orgasmic zest. Such musical drama reportedly drew international celebs
like Marlon Brando, Ernest Hemingway, Simone De Beauvoir, and Jean Paul Sartre into her court. But
it was also such anything-can-happen antics, along with new leader Castro’s bent on nationalizing
and cleaning up Havana’s infamous nightclub scene, that eventually landed La Lupe in New York City
where, from 1962 until her untimely death thirty years later, she would experience the ultimate highs
and lows of life in a business that would crown her the Queen of Latin Soul yet watch idly as she
died a pauper’s death.
La Lupe was born Guadalupe Victoria Yoli Raymond in San Pedrito, a town in the southern part
of Cuba near Santiago de Cuba. (There seems to be an agreement about the day of La Lupe’s birth:
December 23. However, the actual year of her birth appears to be up for debate. Most sources say
either 1936 or 1939. Archival footage from La Lupe’s funeral shows 1936 as the date given on her
casket, while La Lupe’s tombstone at St. Raymond’s Cemetery in the Bronx gives her birth year as
1939.) So rural was her hometown that she later remarked, “I was born in such a small town, nobody
knew about it until I left.” Though attracted to music at an early age, Lupe’s parents encouraged their
daughter to pursue a more stable profession—that of a schoolteacher—and though she followed their
wishes, she couldn’t resist her passion for music, particularly after the family moved to Havana when
La Lupe was a teenager. A melting pot of Eartha Kitt, Edith Piaf, Olga Guillot, and Nina Simone, the
singer’s tempestuously elastic voice could both coddle and torch any genre. Whether interpreting
boleros or son montunos, pop schlock or rock-and-roll ditties, jazz standards or Broadway show
tunes, La Lupe simply couldn’t contain the music within herself. And no one—be it Mongo Santamaria,
Tito Puente, Dick Cavett, or the Fania All-Stars—could ever, no matter how hard they tried, contain her.
“I’ll never forget the first time I met La Lupe,” says Harlemite Henry “Pucho” Brown, himself the
crowned Latin Soul Brother and founding bandleader of Pucho and his Latin Soul Brothers. “I went
to visit Marty Sheller, who was the musical arranger for Mongo at the time. He was living on 86th
Street and Broadway, in a building where there were a bunch of musicians. I walk in, and there’s this
broad laying on the couch, all dirty feet and not lookin’ like much—and it was Lupe. This was around
1962. Then the next thing I know, she’s a big star! When I saw her perform at the Apollo with Mongo,
she was great—a little wacky, but she was great, with a lot of fire! And she liked that voodoo s***.”
That “voodoo s***” was actually Santeria, and for much of her life, La Lupe was indeed known to
be a Santera. Some folks thought that her religious practice could be heard throughout the dozens
of LPs she would eventually make, beginning with her first full-length effort you hold here—Con el
Diablo en el Cuerpo (“With the Devil in the Body”). Recorded April 1960 in Havana, likely at Radio
Progreso, and released for the RCA affiliate Discuba Records the following year, the then twentyyear-
old (or twenty-three) wunderkind follows the musical blueprint she’d stick to throughout her
Spanglish-ized singing career, mashing extravagantly arranged pop standards with raw indigenous
jams. Con el Diablo en el Cuerpo was presumably named after the ecstatic Julio Gutierrez–penned
title track and not (necessarily) after La Lupe’s own penchant for onstage “possession.” However,
a purchasing public couldn’t be faulted if, after taking one look at the album’s front and back
images of a woman clearly transfixed, they thought perhaps the Devil lurked somewhere within the
vinyl’s grooves.
Maybe it was the type of controversy Discuba’s record execs were seeking at the time. Regardless,
from the get-go, La Lupe turns each song into a full-fledged drama, wringing histrionic heartache
even from white-bread teen superstar Paul Anka’s two included numbers, “Crazy Love” and “So It’s
Goodbye.” Of course, it doesn’t hurt to have a top-notch orchestra backing you, and La Lupe has just
that, alternately led and arranged by pianist Felipe Dulzaides and multi-instrumentalist/studio veteran
Eddie Gaytan, whose musicians La Lupe teasingly encourages during their choruses and solos with
shouts of “¡Qué lindo!” and “¡Háblale, háblale!” Moreover, La Lupe raises the already high bar on
the Eddie Cooley/Otis Blackwell standard “Fiebre” (“Fever”), a ubiquitous tune she would obliterate
again later in the decade for Tico Records. We’ll probably never know whether La Lupe thought Con el Diablo en el Cuerpo was going to be
the beginning of a long recording career in Cuba, but the fact is, after her follow-up Discuba release
La Lupe Is Back, she’d never make another record in her native country. Soon after the sophomore
release, she’d find herself in New York City, dominating the ’60s like no other female Latin singer,
packing venues from the Palladium to Carnegie Hall, well on her way to becoming a controversial
icon, even after being supplanted by her compatriot, the soon-to-be-crowned Queen of Salsa, Celia
Cruz. “In Cuba, they called me crazy,” La Lupe would later say. “They didn’t understand me.” The
Bronx—where today you’ll find La Lupe Way—eventually did.
La Lupe did indeed become a teacher, one of music and drama. Con el Diablo en el Cuerpo is
the first lesson.

Cuidado que llegaron los tiburones de la salsa moderna - careful, the sharks of modern salsa are here. This hilarious shout out launches the first collaboration between virtuoso Nuyorican keyboardist Charlie Palmieri and Panamanian sonero Miguel Angel Barcasnegras, aka Meñique, recorded for the Cotique label in 1977.

At the time that he worked on this relatively obscure session, Palmieri had already released his seminal album El Gigante del Teclado with Puerto Rican vocalist Vitín Avilés. The singer's velvety style complemented Charlie's experimental tendencies to perfection. Meñique, on the other hand, brought a more raucous approach to the procedures. As a result, Con Salsa y Sabor is one of the most frantic sessions in Charlie's discography - eight tunes of non-stop salsa with minimal space left for Palmieri's trademark soloing. Both men would collaborate again on the excellent The Heavyweight LP in 1978.

Palmieri's first extended solo arrives, surprisingly, on the third track of this album. An epic, eight minute-long workout, "Calor De Madre" is the mournful lament of a man who has just lost his mother and finds himself alone in the world. Heartfelt odes to motherhood are a tradition in the Afro-Caribbean songbook, and this composition by Meñique himself brings to mind similar tragic tales such as Héctor Lavoe's "Día De Suerte" and "Madre" by Peruvian singer Melcochita.

Born in Panama City in 1933, Meñique built a solid reputation as a sonero performing with such tropical stars as timbalero Kako (Meñique's first full length LP, in 1968), Arsenio Rodríguez, Willie Rosario, Tito Puente (singer on the seminal Para Los Rumberos LP, including the hit "Niña y Señora"), as well as a solo artist. But he was also a gifted composer. Seven of the eight tracks on this album were written by him, and his songs were recorded by artists like Ray Barretto and Adalberto Santiago.

Not surprisingly, two of the songs in this session express the singer's undying love for his homeland: "Mi Tierra Lejana" and "De Panamá A Borinquen." "Mi Tierra Lejana," in particular, should be used by the Panamanian Board of Tourism to promote the country - this exuberant track boasts a variety of musical moods, as well as a zesty list of everything that makes Panama such an appealing destination. When Meñique shouts "llegó la salsa, caballeros" it is one of those intense moments of pure fever that delights salsa fans.

Unlike other tropical bandleaders who are no longer with us, like Tito Puente or Ray Barretto, the recorded output of Charlie Palmieri's was relatively small. This becomes particularly painful considering that Charlie was the man that his younger brother Eddie Palmieri referred to as "el verdadero rey de las blancas y las negras" (the real king of the ivories). In effect, every one of Charlie's recorded solos is a precious moment to enjoy. Every one of his albums, a treasure.

As part of the promotion of this record, Palmieri and Meñique appeared on the infamous Puerto Rican TV show Noche de Gala performing an electrifying version of "El Barón." A clip of this performance (including a wonderfully dissonant, almost violent piano solo by Charlie) is widely available on the Internet.

Watching a young Meñique belting out this song with his usual passion, framed by Charlie's piano and a ferocious salsa orchestra, you can't help but fool yourself into believing, for a brief moment, that the spirit of old school salsa is still alive and kicking in this day and age.